Tuesday, August 31, 2010

08/31/2010
An article posted on the GMA News Web site on Aug. 18 (“Ninoy networked with everyone, Reds included,” by Lisandro Claudio) gives details of the links between Ninoy Aquino and the Communist Party of the Philippines formed by Jose Maria Sison in 1968.

As Claudio concedes, however, these links are not exactly news. It has, for example, been known for decades that Aquino acted as a middle-man in the formation of the New People’s Army, arranging the initial meeting between Sison and Bernabe Buscayno, better-known as Kumander Dante, the NPA’s first leader. As this outsider researched a forthcoming book (A Movement Divided, to be published next year, is a sequel to 2007’s Forcing the Pace), one of my sources confirmed this particular link, adding that Aquino also provided arms and allowed his Times Street residence to be used by wounded NPA fighters.

Prior to this, Aquino had led an interesting life working with the CIA, a connection upon which Claudio is silent.

At President Magsaysay’s suggestion, Aquino spent four months in the USA, observing CIA training methods, following which he reported back to Magsaysay. By now he had married into the wealthy Cojuangco family. When the Spanish-owned Tabacalera company decided to sell the 7,000-hectare Hacienda Luisita, Magsaysay mentioned this to Aquino, as the former wished to avoid the property falling into the hands of the Lopez family. Aquino then approached his father-in-law, Jose Cojuangco, who purchased it.

After the death of Magsaysay, President Garcia asked Aquino if he would provide refuge for a group of anti-Sukarno colonels linked with the secessionist rebels of Sumatra. This was agreed, and a training camp was established on the hacienda which, according to Sterling Seagrave, was “[o]ne of the CIA’s favorite estates” as it “provided the Agency with facilities to train agents for conspiracies throughout Southeast Asia.” Gabriel Kolko informs us that when the Sukarno loyalists stormed Sumatra to put down the rebellion, the CIA “assigned some three hundred to four hundred Americans and foreigners to supply the rebels with arms and supplies...” Amazingly, and by his own admission, one of these foreigners was Aquino, who was sent to Menado with two army radio technicians; he stayed a month and then returned to Manila to report.... MORE